Jason Voorhees is the main villain of the Friday the 13th slasher film series and its remakes as a murderer for revenge. Either as a figment of imagination or in the flesh, Jason appears in every novel, comic, and film.

Jason stalks and kills the Camp Crystal Lake, feeling a burning need to avenge the death of his beloved mother, Pamela, and the abuse they received, largely due to Jason's deformity. He has only one copycat killer, Roy Burns.

Contents

Biography

Childhood

Jason Voorhees was born on Friday, June 13, 1947 to Pamela and Elias Voorhees[1] in the small town of Crystal Lake. Jason suffered from severe physical deformities and possibly mental disabilities, and experienced a sheltered childhood; he did not attend school and the only contact he had was with his mother.[2] However, during the summer of 1957, Jason attended Camp Crystal Lake, where his mother worked as a cook. Unfortunately, his disturbing appearance earned him ridicule and persecution from the other children, who, on one occasion, teased him by trying to cover his face and calling him a "freak show". In an effort to escape their taunts, a terrified Jason ran down the pier and fell into the Crystal Lake. Unable to swim, he began to struggle and disappeared under the water.[3][4]

Jason is thrown into the waters of Camp Crystal Lake by the bullies

Jason was then saved and kept secret by Deuce Hill, for this reason his body was never found. His mother blamed the camp counselors, Barry, Claudette, and the other counselors who were supposed to have been looking after Jason, but had been too busy having sex and talking to prevent the accident. A year later, in the summer of 1958, Mrs. Voorhees snuck into Camp Crystal Lake at night and murdered Barry and Claudette, the two teenagers that were supposed to have been watching the children. After the double homicide, the camp was closed. The double murder than led to some people calling the camp "Camp Blood".[3]

The camp was deserted up until 1979 when a man named Steve Christy tried to re-open the camp that his parents once owned. Mrs. Voorhees stalked the camp, killing off Christy and six of the hired counselors. The only survivor of the massacre was a girl named Alice Hardy. She fought off Mrs. Voorhees and decapitated her with a machete. Jason had witnessed this and made him go on a murder spree to avenge his mother, and keep her wish going to keep the area closed. After Alice killed Mrs. Voorhees, she got in a canoe and passed out. When Alice was recovered by police, she claimed that "the boy" had dragged her under the water. The confused police told her that, upon searching the campground, they hadn't found any boy.[3]

Birth of a killer (1981)

Jason Voorhees in Part ll

Two months later, Alice was at home trying to get over the horrible events that took place at the camp, when she was attacked in her apartment by Jason, who killed her with an ice pick. How Jason was still alive following his supposed childhood drowning was unknown. Jason returned to Crystal Lake, where he continued to live in the forest, keeping a grisly shrine to his mother where he surrounds her severed head with the mutilated corpses of the counselors. A camp counselor training ground at Crystal Lake, despite local police warning him he was located too close to the site of the "Camp Blood" massacre. Jason, now wearing a Burlap sack over his head to hide his deformed face, broke into the camp grounds to punish the counselors for their intrusion and well as more revenge for his mothers death. After killing six of them, he struggled with a girl named Ginny Field. Ginny, who was familiar with the local legend of Jason Voorhees and Camp Blood, relied on psychology to defeat the killer. Finding Jason's shack in the woods, she donned Mrs. Voorhees' sweater and took on the role of Jason's mother, distracting him long enough to drive a machete into Jason's shoulder. Ginny and Paul left Jason for dead and returned to the camp, where Ginny was attacked from behind, and blacked out. The next morning, Ginny was being taken away in an ambulance, but neither Jason nor Paul were anywhere to be found.[2]

Jason wears his mask in Part lll

The next day, Jason continued to avenge his mother by killing a couple living in a home near Crystal Lake and acquired new clothes. Then he made his way to a vacationing spot called Higgins Haven, where he killed seven vacationing teenagers and three bikers. It was there that he acquired a hockey mask from one of his victims, Shelly Finkelstein. The only survivor of Jason's rampage was Chris Higgins, the girl he had attacked two years earlier. Chris managed to hold Jason off for some time, inflicting various severe injuries on him, none of which proved fatal; she stabbed him in the leg and hanged him on a rope before finally swinging an axe into his face. Jason finally collapsed, and a severely disturbed Chris was discovered the next morning by police, making bizarre claims that a "lady in the lake" attacked her.[5]

Jason is impaled on his own machete and killed by Tommy Jarvis in Part llll

Believing Jason to be dead, the paramedics took his body to the Wessex County Mortuary, where he soon regained consciousness. Killing two hospital staff on his escape, Jason returned to Crystal Lake, where he came across the home of twelve-year-old Tommy Jarvis and his family. Jason murdered a group of teenagers who were renting the house next door before being discovered by Tommy's sister, Trish Jarvis and then went after Tommy. As Trish tried desperately to defend herself and her brother from Jason's attack,Jason chased Trish all the way next door whilst Tommy formed an idea from newspaper clipping telling the story of Jason Voorhees. Shaving his head to resemble the young Jason, Tommy managed to distract the confused killer just as he was about to kill Trish, before impaling him through the skull with his own machete. When the mutilated Jason still showed signs of life, Tommy desperate started hacking away at his body in an effort to ensure he was dead.[6]

Following his death, Jason was buried at Eternal Peace Cemetery in the Crystal Lake area,[7] although local officials were under the belief that he had been cremated. Meanwhile, the traumatised Tommy Jarvis spent his adolescence in a series of psychiatric facilities, suffering visions of Jason Voorhees. Showing signs of progress, he was transported to a halfway house in the hopes that he could soon re-enter society. However, a brutal incident at the facility caused local ambulance driver, Roy Burns, to take on the guise of Jason Voorhees, killing most of the residents at the halfway house as revenge for the death of his son. Although some authorities initially credited the real Jason for the murders, Tommy eventually defeated the killer and revealed his true identity.[8]

Resurrection (1986)

Jason is resurrected by a bolt of lightning when Tommy Jarvis' plans to destroy his corpse goes horribly wrong in Part 6

The events at the halfway house only contribute to Tommy's mental problems. After his release from a mental institution, he and his friend traveled to the Eternal Peace Cemetery and sought a solution between him and Jason. Tommy planned to destroy Jason's remnants, men by grave hammer, he hit a metal rod through his heart in anger. When Tommy was ready to get the body, hit the bar and brought Jason back to life. After putting Jason Kill his friend, Tommy fled to the local police office when he told Sheriff Garris the events that took place; Garris thought he was crazy and put him in a cell for the night. With no one to stop him, Jason returned to Camp Crystal Lake - reopened as Camp Forest Green - and continued to kill his way through the new counselors. There were actually children in this movie, but Jason has never hurt them and went only to the young adults. Tommy avoided the cell using Garris' daughter Megan and traveled to the camp where he made his plan to return Jason "at home"; Tommy put a chain around his neck and lowered Jason to the bottom of the lake and drowned him again. Men at the bottom of the lake became his neck shaped by Megan using a boat propeller blade

Jason finds himself in Times Square after stowing away on a boat bound for Manhattan in Part 8

As Jason rotted in the depths of the lake, a girl named Tina Shepard returned to the area help her get over the death of her father, whom she had accidentally killed in Crystal Lake with her telekinetic powers years earlier. While at the lake she attempted to use her powers to resurrect her father, but succeeded only in raising Jason from the dead. Jason killed a group teenagers vacationing next door to Tina, as well Tina's mother and doctor. Tina confronted Jason with her powers, eventually causing an explosion which sent him flying back into the lake. As Jason recovered from this assault, Tina was saved by the spirit of her father, who rose out of the water and dragged Jason back into the lake.[9]

Resurrected once again by an underwater electric cable snagged by a boat anchor, Jason climbed aboard the S.S. Lazarus, a cruise ship full of high school graduates bound for New York City. He killed most of the passengers and sank the Lazarus, before chasing the few survivors—which included Rennie Wickam and Sean Robertson—into the heart of Manhattan. Rennie had been experiencing visions of Jason throughout the journey after an incident in her childhood when her stepfather pushed her into Crystal Lake as an attempt to make her swim. She nearly died when a young Jason Voorhees tried to drag her underwater; whether this event actually happened or was just another bizarre hallucination was never proven. Jason followed Rennie and Sean into the sewers of Manhattan, where he fell victim to a gush of toxic waste which flooded the tunnel and engulfed him. Rennie and Sean escaped as Jason was regressed to a child by the toxic substance; again, this may or may not have been one of Rennie's visions as opposed to actual events.[10]

To Hell and back (1993)

Jason escaped New York and eventually found his way back to Crystal Lake. Meanwhile, the F.B.I began to realize the threat Jason Voorhees posed and took action against him. Setting up a trap, they managed to physically blow Jason's body apart. Thinking him dead and gone, they took his remains to a morgue in Ohio. But the coroner became hypnotized by Jason's still-beating heart and proceeded to eat it. Jason managed to take possession of the coroner's body and escape the F.B.I. But his dark soul could not exist indefinitely inside just anyone; he needed the body of another Voorhees to be truly reborn. Burning his way through several bodies in the process, Jason attempted to track down his only living relatives, his older sister Diana Kimble, niece Jessica Kimble, and Jessica's baby daughter Stephanie. Jessica's ex-boyfriend Steven Freeman learned from Creighton Duke—a bounty hunter determined to take down Jason Voorhees—that, as Jason could be reborn through a Voorhees, so too could he killed by one. As Jason was reborn through the corpse of Diana, and killed Creighton Duke and then went after Jessica and Stephen. Stephen and Jessica worked together to kill him once and for all. Jessica succeeded in stabbing her uncle through the heart with a mystical dagger before he could kill Stephen. After stabbing her evil uncle, Jason was dragged into Hell, by Freddy Kruger where he slowly was psychologically tortured by visions of his awful past.[1]

Jason faces off against Freddy Krueger in the dream world in Freddy vs Jason (Part 11)

Jason lingered in the bowels of Hell, reliving his murders at Camp Crystal Lake in a seemingly eternal nightmare. He was finally motivated to "wake up" by Freddy Krueger, a supernatural serial killer whose specialty was killing teenagers in their dreams. Posing as Pamela Voorhees, Freddy manipulated Jason into going to Elm Street in the town of Springwood, whose citizens had repressed the memory of Freddy, thus robbing him of his powers. When Jason started murdering teenagers on Elm Street, the people of Springwood began to suspect that Freddy Krueger had returned, and their fear replenished the dream demon's powers. But Freddy struggled to get rid of Jason, who began imposing on his territory and stealing his potential victims. Losing his patience, Freddy revealed his true identity to Jason, causing a battle to erupt between the two killers, which ranged from Freddy's dream world to Jason's home of Crystal Lake. During the fight, Freddy discovered Jason's subconscious fear of drowning and exploited it by returning him to the moment he drowned as a child. But when Jason woke up from his nightmare, he was able to inflict physical damage of Freddy, ripping his arm off and stabbing him through the chest with his own clawed hand. As Freddy was finished off by his would-be victim Lori Campbell, the defeated Jason sank back into Crystal Lake. He emerged sometime later holding Freddy's severed head, which then winked and laughed; whether this was a dream or reality is unknown.[4]

Jason X (2008 - 2455)

Jason is destroyed and rebuilt from scratch as the cybernetic "Uber Jason" in Jason X (Part 10)

By the year 2008, Jason had been captured by the U.S. government and was being held at Camp Crystal Lake Research Facility. Government researcher Rowan LaFontaine led several attempts to execute him, but was unsuccessfully due to Jason's uncanny ability to regenerate damaged body cells. Eventually, Rowan decided to cryogenically freeze Jason until they could find out what else to do with him, but the government already had plans to make profit by studying his regenerative powers. Jason managed to break free from his contraints and murdered several soldiers in the facility, before Rowan lured him into the cryonic chamber. Just as she activated the cryogenic suspension, Jason stabbed through the door with his machete, freezing them both inside the sealed chamber.

As the centuries pass, Earth became too polluted to support life, with mankind moving to a new planet called Earth Two. Jason and Rowan were finally discovered in the year 2455 by a group of students on a field trip to the abandoned world. They took the two bodies aboard their spacecraft, The Grendel, and succeeded in reanimating Rowan, but declared Jason deceased. When Jason thawed, he proceeded to murder everyone aboard The Grendel continuing his ever wanted revenge for the death of his mother. Although the ship's team of soldiers, led by Sgt. Brodski, did their best to repel the killer, only the android Kay-Em 14 was successful in destroying Jason, blasting his body apart. Jason's corpse was left in the medical station, where his body was rebuild by the computer's advanced nanotechnology. The computer replaced his missing body tissue with cybernetic technology, transforming him into "Uber Jason", who attacked Rowan and the students again. They distracted Jason with a virtual reality simulation of Crystal Lake, while Sgt. Brodski attempted to repair the damaged ship. As the others escaped, Brodski sacrificed himself by maneuvering himself and Jason away from the survivors and into the atmosphere of Earth Two, where they were apparently burned to death and landed in a forest lake. All that appeared to remain of the terror that was Jason Voorhees is his charred hockey mask; with this, it would appear that Jason was truly and permanently dead.[11] This filmed marked the only film in which Jason took his revenge in Space

Powers and abilities

Even as a living human, Jason possessed uncanny resistance to harm and injury, managing to survive injuries that would either kill or disable others, such as being stabbed in the shoulder with a machete (Part 2), being hung, and even receiving an axe to the head (Part III). Furthermore, Jason either cannot feel pain or has a high tolerance for it, showing little reaction to injuries such as having his hand split down the middle with his own machete (The Final Chapter). Even after being impaled through the eye with his own machete, he still showed some signs of life. Despite being a human, Jason possessed enhanced strength above anything a normal person could achieve. This is evidenced by his ability to bend a barrel of a rifle with his bare hand, and crushing a man's head so hard that his eye popped out of it's socket. After he is unintentionally resurrected by Tommy, Jason has become more powerful than ever before.

Jason is superhumanly strong and durable, casually shrugging off bullets, being burned alive, electrocuted, and even submerged in a flood of toxic waste. In the event that he is injured, he can rapidly regenerate himself, retaining his eyesight despite being stabbed in the eyes, and even regrowing his severed fingers after his battle with Freddy Krueger. He has displayed his incredible strength on several occasions, smashing through solid walls and wooden barriers, lifting adult humans off the ground with one hand, crushing their skulls between his palms, and at one point punching a young man in the face with such force that his head popped off his shoulders.

He can also survive getting blown to pieces, in which his heart can hypnotize anyone into eating it, causing the victim to be possessed by his demonic spirit. While possessing a victim, his reflection in a mirror is that of his true form. After a while, Jason must transfer into someone else's body in the form of a parasitic snake demon, traveling from his current victim's mouth to his next victim's mouth. This will cause the previous victim to gruesomely melt away. He can also leave the victim's body in the form of a Hellbaby. In order to be fully reborn as himself, he must possess the body - whether it be living or dead - of another Voorhees.

Jason is essentially immortal, having survived several apparent deaths, and even being resurrected through various means, such as a bolt of lightning (Jason Lives). Both Freddy Krueger and Pamela Voorhees have stated that, no matter what, Jason can never truly die. Though he was apparently killed and dragged into the depths of Hell by Jessica Kimble, even this proved to be a temporary death thanks to Freddy's manipulations.

Jason appears to be able to breathe underwater and often uses water to his advantage, typically by drowning his victims.

When he is subjected to a regenerative nanotechnology process in Jason X and transformed into a cyborg, Jason becomes even stronger; his strength is enhanced to the point where he can punch through solid steel, he is completely bulletproof, and can survive in the vacuum of space unaided.

In addition to his various superhuman abilities, Jason has shown to be skilled in the use of various weapons, both melee and ranged. Even the simplest of tools can become a deadly weapon when in Jason's hands, ranging from an ice pick (Part 2) to a simple heated rock (Jason Takes Manhattan). Jason is also highly intelligent and a master of stealth, being able to set up different booby traps. On numerous occasions, Jason often stalks an entire group of people at once. On these occasions, he easily avoids detection, and picks off the group members one by one without anyone else noticing.

Weaknesses and vulnerabilities

Despite his great power, Jason does have a few notable weaknesses:

Despite having used water to his advantage on several occasions and regularly swimming since his resurrection, Jason does appear to be afraid of water to some extent, which Freddy used to his advantage to nearly drown him in Freddy vs Jason.

If trapped under the waters of Crystal Lake by any means, such as chains, Jason will be immobilized and unable to escape without outside help.

Jason gets soft around children and babies and generally around people who never entered Crystal Lake as he doesn't harm them

Deaths/Defeats

The following is a list of times Jason Voorhees is killed or supposedly killed in the movies.

1: Before the main events of the series, Jason drowned in Camp Crystal Lake.

2: In Friday the 13th Part III, Jason was struck in the head with an axe by Chris Higgins.

3: In Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Jason was impaled through the skull with his own machete and then hacked apart by Tommy Jarvis.

4: In Friday the 13th Part VI Jason Lives, Jason was chained to the bottom of Crystal Lake and Megan Garris ground his throat up with a boat's propeller blade, breaking his neck.

5: In Friday the 13th Part VII The New Blood, Jason was dragged to the bottom of Crystal Lake and chained there again by the soul of Tina's father after she summoned him.

6: In Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason is covered in toxic waste, burning his face, and is then swept away in a wave of waste that transports him back to Crystal Lake.

7: In Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, Jason was stabbed in the heart by Jesicca Kimble and dragged to Hell.

8: In Jason X, Jason was knocked down towards Earth 2 where he was burned in it's atmosphere by the reentry.

9: In Freddy vs Jason, Jason takes a vicious beating from Freddy Krueger. He is then blasted by a propane-caused explosion along with Freddy (although this doesn't kill him).

In other media

Jason appeared in some episodes of Robot Chicken. In one of them, he stalks and kills the Scooby Doo gang. In another episode, That Hurts Me, he appeared alongside other horror movie villains - namely Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Ghostface, Pinhead, and Leatherface - on the Big Brother show. Jason's role is relatively minor. While playing charades with Michael and Leatherface (none of the three can talk), he did the robot and the funky chicken (Robot Chicken), though Freddy says that the answer was the Da Vinci Code.

Jason appears in Angry Video Game Nerd. He is forcing the Nerd to play his game on NES, and whenever the nerd would act up, and say anything negative about the game, he would threaten to kill him. After the Nerd has enough of the game, he knocks Jason unconscious with the controller, and blasts his head off with the Zapper.

Jason also appeared in episodes of Family Guy, It Takes A Village Idiot, and I Married One. He talks in a sophisticated voice and is interviewed on the lake being cleaned, though he stabs two girls dead. He is also the manager of a store and threatens to kill the clerk if she screws up. He also appears in Killer Queen along his son.

He also appeared in the spoof movie Stan Helsing as an antagonist. Like Leatherface, he has the least screen time. His appearance is changed to that of a hockey player (as a reference to his hockey mask), with a red hockey shirt and wielding a hockey stick as a weapon. He is renamed Mason. He and Michael are the third and fourth to be defeated; Stan pulls on their masks, and, after Teddy sprays ketchup on them, kicks them out through the door where they are eaten by Sammyboy the dog. Ironically, he is played by Ken Kirzinger, who played Jason in Freddy vs Jason.

Jason also appears in a couple of commercials for the now-defunct RadioShack electronics store. In the first commercial, he learns about 3D printing and creates a copy of the employee's house key. The other commercial that Jason's in is the 2014 RadioShack Super Bowl commercial in which he, Chucky, Alf, Hulk Hogam and other eighties icons raid a RadioShack.

Victims

This is a list of Jason Voorhees' confirmed murder victims. Debatable murders like Paul Holt do not count.

150: Bill Freeburg: Possessed by Freddy Krueger and slashed in half with machete.

151: Charlie Linderman: Thrown and bleeds out after being impaled on a wall bracket.

152: Kia Waterson: Slashed with machete and hits a tree.

153: Freddy Krueger: He is beaten up and impaled by his own arm by Jason Voorhees. Lori Campbell then finished Freddy with Jason's machete.

Trivia

Jason doesn't kill in neither the first film or the fifth film, it is his mother who is the killer in part one and his copycat killer in the fifth.

Kane Hodder is the actor who has played Jason the most. He has played Jason four times from Friday the 13th: The New Blood to Jason X.

Although Jason never spares victims, he spared Whitney in the remake because she looked like his mother when she was young. Also in the original he spared children as he will only kill much older person.

Jason is probably the villain with most murders in film history. He has killed 158 persons aprox (126 in the original film series and original timeline.

He kills in all the movies where he appears at least one person with his machete.

He started to wear his iconic hockey mask since Friday the 13th Part III. Before of that he was wearing a sack.

His death is the golden chainsaw in Dead Meat's kill count for the 4th film.

Freddy vs. Jason has established that Jason's weakness is water, since he died by drowning (although he was shown in water in some films).